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New Zealand will be without Shane Bond until February at least
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Shane Bond will miss this month's Chappell-Hadlee Series after his
recovery from an abdominal tear has taken longer than expected. New
Zealand are set to maintain the same 14-man one-day squad which
narrowly lost the one-dayers to South Africa, the national selector
Richard Hadlee told the Dominion Post. James Franklin remains out following knee surgery.

Bond, the fast bowler, will also be unavailable for Bangladesh's visit
in January, all of which he finds "frustrating". He picked up the
problem in November, during New Zealand's injury-hit tour of South
Africa where they won one match out of seven. They lost both Tests, the
Twenty20, the one-day series 2-1 and even the warm-up.

He said it was exhausting to come back from yet another injury and
feared for his future in the game should he keep picking up problems.
"It's worn me down," he told Radio Sport
on Tuesday. "I've spent a lot of time rehab-ing. There are a lot things
I want to achieve and to be realistic, I can't expect cricket to keep
supporting me if I am going to continue to get injured, so it's
frustrating."

He is now aiming to recover for England's
visit in February and March, when they will play five one-dayers and
three Tests. In his absence, Kyle Mills has filled in well and
impressed Hadlee. "Mills has been outstanding," he told the Dominion Post.
"With Bond out, he has stepped up magnificently." Mills was named Man
of the Series in South Africa for his nine wickets at 11.33.

He will now lead the attack for New Zealand's
defence of the Chappell-Hadlee title in Australia after their 3-0
cleansweep last season. The first of the three one-dayers is at the
Adelaide Oval on December 14.

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Howzat?: Richard Hadlee has been overlooked for his family's own trophy
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Richard Hadlee has not been asked to the tournament named after his
family, the Chappell-Hadlee Series, which takes place in Australia this
month. He and his younger brother Dayle, who also played for New
Zealand, have been left off Cricket Australia's invite list for the
three-match series starting in Adelaide on December 14.

"You would think there would be some representation from either family,
particularly when your name is attached to something, but nothing has
happened," Hadlee told the Dominion Post.

He would be unavailable for the Adelaide match anyway, as he will now
attend a New Zealand Cricket Players' Association charity event in
Invercargill instead. But he said his brother could be an equally
decent representative. "It is a family thing," he said, "it is not
about me."

New Zealand Cricket's chief executive Justin
Vaughan believes the slight was accidental, suggesting that the
tournament's infancy - this will be its fourth series - was the reason
for the oversight. "I don't think this is a deliberate snub, but it is
something both us and Cricket Australia have to address," Vaughan said.

"I think we need to make a conscious effort
to invite someone from the Chappell family when we host it and Cricket
Australia has to make a conscious effort to invite someone from the
Hadlee family."

CA's chief executive James Sutherland said
Hadlee hadn't been invited because they were told he couldn't make it.
"I know through my office we've made inquiries about Sir Richard's
availability to be at the Chappell-Hadlee matches and we were led to
believe that he wasn't available," Sutherland told AAP.
"But if he is available we would of course be absolutely delighted to
have him at matches, as we have previously at other Chappell-Hadlee
matches."

Sutherland also rejected suggestions that CA
might look to scrap the series. "It's something that continues to grow
with interest and as we know it's actually one of the trophies at the
moment that the Australian team doesn't hold and I know the boys are
very keen to get that back."

Australia believe Andrew Symonds should be fit for their next international series
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Ricky Ponting is confident Andrew Symonds will be fit for Australia's
push to regain the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy, which begins on December 14.
Symonds hurt his ankle while batting in the first innings of the Hobart
Test and took no further part in the match after posting his
half-century.

"We've got three weeks before the Chappell-Hadlee, I would imagine he would be right for those," Ponting told AAP.
"If you look at the way he has batted in the last couple of games, he
has gone out when we were looking at declaring and got 50 off 50 balls
both times.

"We know how destructive he can be and we saw
that in Melbourne last year, that magnificent [Test] hundred he made
there. It's not only his bowling. He gives us a fair bit with the bat
and he can give us a lot in the field as well. He's a pretty vital cog
in our team at the moment so we hope he can be back on the park pretty
quickly."

Ponting is keen to regain the trophy after
New Zealand surprised Australia with a 3-0 series win in February.
During that tour Australia rested Ponting and Adam Gilchrist, leaving
Michael Hussey in charge of an under-strength side that came up against
some impressive New Zealand batting.

However, New Zealand's results so far on
their South Africa tour - they lost both Tests and failed to post 200
in any innings - suggest they are not in the same kind of form as
earlier this year. "New Zealand right at the moment they've got a few
injuries as well," Ponting said. "Shane Bond is down and Jacob Oram is
down. A few of their guys have gone down over in South Africa."

Ponting said a 3-0 result had not reflected
the closeness of the February series. "There was a lot spoken about in
that series about probably how badly we went," Ponting said. "If you
actually look at the games I don't think we played that badly at all.
We scored 340 and 350 in a couple of those games and lost. There's
extra motivation there."

New Zealand's tour opens with a Twenty20
international in Perth on December 11. The three-match Chappell-Hadlee
Series follows with games in Adelaide, Sydney and Hobart before
Australia switch back into five-day mode for the Boxing Day Test
against India.

The 18th Lilac Hill game will go ahead with New Zealand playing the Cricket Australia Chairman's XI
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New Zealand will prepare for the Chappell-Hadlee Series in December by
appearing in the annual Lilac Hill fixture in Western Australia. The
18th edition of the match was in doubt due to the altered international
calendar, but New Zealand agreed to use the game against the Cricket
Australia Chairman's XI on December 7 to assist their defence of the
trophy.

"We are ecstatic that the Lilac Hill
tradition, which has spanned almost two decades, will continue," Graeme
Wood, the Western Australian Cricket Association chief executive, said.
New Zealand have a Twenty20 International against Australia at the WACA
on December 11 before the first of three Chappell-Hadlee games starting
in Adelaide on December 14.

Michael Brown, the Cricket Australia manger
of operations, was pleased New Zealand Cricket had agreed to keep the
game on the summer schedule. "I'm sure this traditional fixture will
again be one of the highlights of the summer in Western Australia," he
said. Sri Lanka will play two Tests in Australia in November, but
India's delayed arrival means the first of the four Tests will begin in
Melbourne on Boxing Day.

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